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I have no problems with the 7th Doctor being silly at times... All the Doctors
are eccentric and/or silly in one way or another at times. It is what makes the
Doctor, the Doctor. But
the stories themselves need to take themselves more seriously to show the
contrast between the Doctor and the situation in those cases. It's when you have
a flying road
bus traveling in space is when I begin to check out.

I have to echo Bernard's last comment, above. Ken's suggestion that,
"there
were a few spots over the last couple of years where the show took a hit, and
it was comparable to the McCoy years," was particularly troubling. It's a
fundamental misread of the numbers to suggest that ratings prior to the
"hiatus" were as good as the "rough patches" of the RTD era. In terms of raw
ratings, you can sort of make the argument that Davison and early Baker
stories were arond 7 million, like some current episodes. You can't, however,
make that argument on any level about the McCoy years, which only twice
inched above 6 million viewers (and more typically resided at or below 5
million viewers).

In any event, the real story is
in the rankings, not the ratings.

Only two episodes of the JNT era broke the top 40 of all
programs: parts 3 and 4 of "Earthshock". Story averages were, at best, in the
50s-60s, while many episodes were below the 80s. By the final McCoy
season, Doctor Who story averages were around 100th place. "Curse
of Fenric" was such a ratings irrelevance, its place on the charts could no
longer even be estimated.

Looking particularly at the season that precipitated the hiatus, Baker's first
two stories of S22 had an average ranking of 98, with three of those
four episodes being below 100th place. This was about a 30-point drop over
"Twin Dilemma", which was in the high 60's, and it was a drop over the
average of the rest of S21, which probably rested somewhere in the 70s.
That drop should have gotten any responsible programmer's
attention. Competition in television is relative, not
absolute. Share — how you're doing versus other programing — has to be
factored in; you can't just look at the raw number of eyeballs in front of the
tube. Due to the fact that the playing field is never level (there are always
differences in the total available audience due to seasonal variability and total
number of channels, rankings are a much better indicator of how a show is
doing over time than ratings.

Prior to the JNT era, Doctor Who regularly posted at least one
episode per story into the top 40, with much of the first two seasons of the
Hinchcliffe era offering episodes in the top 20. It's always been extremely
revealing to me that the final episode of the Graham Williams era, "The Horns
of Nimon", rested at number 26. Despite pointing to "Horns of Nimon" as an
example of what he didn't want to do, JNT only vaguely came close to this
number with a 32 for "Earthshock" part 3.

Since "Survival", every episode of Doctor Who has been in
the top 20, except for "The Empty Child" (which barely missed at
21). Oh, whoops, I'm wrong. There was one part of the JNT era that
did manage a good ranking: even "Dimensions in Time" was in
the top 20! (Although the ranking here has a fair bit to do with it being
a part of a charity event.)

So, no, there's not really any genuine commonality between any part of the
JNT era and any part of the post-RTD era to date. And there was definite
decline from the moment JNT schlepped into the producer's chair.